Ep2. Putting British food on school menus – the experts have their say.

Derek Wright: 00:01

In this, episode of Love British Food, we are privileged to be joined. By two legends of the school catering world, Jackie Blake OBE and Kath Brecken, as well as Chris from OCS Food Service, a new and passionate partner of Love British food. You will hear us discussing why they care about British food and how they get this onto school menus and what they have learnt from their long careers at the forefront of the education industry. Most importantly, how they will be taking part in the British food fortnight that takes place the 20 September to the 6 October. So if you're a school caterer, this is an opportunity to hear from the very best in our industry. And if you're just discovering Love British food, we hope you will find it interesting to hear firsthand from people actually working in school food.

Derek Wright: 01:09

Hello, I'm Derek Wright, your host, and before I introduce my guests, I'll quickly introduce myself. I'm one of the directors of Love British Food and chair of the Love British Foods Education Working Group, alongside Jane Eaves, who represents universities. This is a group of leading caterers, all who are passionate about putting quality, nutritious food on children's plates. They all understand the role that British farming has in achieving this and the role they have in teaching children where food comes from and its value. The group meets regular and shares ideas and, most importantly, provides a forum of best practise that other education caterers can learn from. I'm also the catering services manager at a local authority where I'm responsible for delivering school meals in 32 schools. For many of the children we feed, the school meal is their only hot meal of the day and for some, the only meal of their day. We are lucky that British food is at the heart of our menus. Why? Having close relationships with our suppliers gives us a reliable supply of British produce, further boosting our, quality and nutrition. This also supports price challenges and we are proud as a council to support our local economy and, local businesses. A, role in the community really matters to us. So today's episode focuses around education catering. There's a few industry terms that we'll use in this episode, so I'll explain them now. Lacer. This is the association that represents the school food industry and craft training refers to the training within the kitchen environment. So, to my guests, Rob Cass from the academy at OCs, Cath Brecken, development and training manager at North Yorkshire Council, and Jackie Blake Obe. We will start with you, Jackie, if you could tell me a little bit more about your role.

Jackie Blake:: 03:21

Hi, I'm Jackie Blake, I'm currently retired, work for 32 years for Nottingham City Council. I have been the chair, of lace and I am, an ambassador for love and British food. Took up love, the British food mantle and everything that goes with the whole process of not just the two weeks, but trying to embed it in everything that we did at Nottingham. Because, although we celebrate the two weeks, it's really important to me that we tried to get, local and British as much as we could. Not easy in a city, obviously not many fields around and about, but we tried to keep it to within a radius of the city because Nottingham, is aiming to be carbon neutral by 2028. So that obviously fitted perfectly with, the British food and everything that goes with that. So really feel it's important to educate children. We're not just caterers. It's not just a responsibility to provide the hot, healthy meal, but really important that we use, the opportunity to have a lunchtime as the 9th lesson of the day and try and educate them about all good food and British.

Derek Wright: 04:30

Thank you, Jackie. Rob

Rob Cass:: 04:32

My name's Rob Cass. I'm, operations manager, for academy, which is part of the OCS group. so academy is, the education division of OCS. so we look after primary schools, secondary schools and further education. We do have a little bit of, private, education, under our umbrella as well, but primarily secondaries and, primary schools within the business. I've been with academy for over 14 years, but I'm very much craft based. So there's nothing more I love than getting in the kitchen training, and working with my, team. You know, we've got some fantastic people within our business. We've got Jennifer Brown, who was, runner up at LACA, chef, of the year last year. And I've also guided some of my chefs into entering again this year. Jenny's in the southwest finals a couple of weeks time, and I've got one of my apprentices doing finishing touches, this year. And also one of my, newer chef managers entering the grab and go challenge, as well. So very much focus on people. I also train, students as well. So I look at, talking to, students about how to cook fresh meals at, home. I, set up the academy cookery school, as part of our corporate and social responsibility piece. So we, roll that out to students and to parents, as well. So just to educate people on how to use great British ingredients and cook from scratch.

Derek Wright: Oh, thank you very much, Rob.

Kath Brecon: 06:27

Hi, I'm Kath Brecon and I'm development and training chef for North Yorkshire Council. So part of our ethos is cooking local, using fresh, local produce, which is something I know we all believe on, that are on this podcast today. I have worked up from the ranks, coming from the private sector, coming over to the public. I had my own school and I loved nothing more than roping in local chefs to come into our school to teach our children. We actually sent some of our pupils out on a fishing boat to do a campaign called catch it, cook it, eat it, which we did with the very, famous magpie Cafe in Whitby, where I live. We've done various other things, like a barbecue on the beach and like everyone else. Again, I truly believe that we need to get children back cooking, cooking from scratch, which is something that I've kind of done over this weekend. I also have the very great honour of being no professional education ambassador. So there we create recipes, we give guidance for everybody within the education sector. And I am also, regional treasurer for Yorkshire and Humberside m lesser committee. So we always try and bring everybody in and be really proactive and get everybody thinking about where the food comes from, sourcing local. And we've got some great events planned, which I'm really looking forward to.

Derek Wright: 07:58

Oh, thank you very much, Kath. Jackie, we didn't mention right at the start, it's Jackie Blake OBe for all the work that you've done within education. So tell me about the day, Jackie, how was that?

Jackie Blake: 08:10

Oh, it was unbelievable, actually. Really good. Yes. the whole experience, just Windsor Castle itself, everything's so well organised. It's. Yeah.

Derek Wright: Ah.

Jackie Blake: Military operation, but, yeah, fabulous. And I was presented my obe, by Princess Anne. And first thing she said to me was, so you're a caterer. So she'd obviously done her homework. And, although the title says for services to education, obviously, because it's education department and my husband and my son said that, she seemed to talk to me for ages. So she was obviously, either I'm a chatterbox or just managed to keep her engaged. She seemed really interested and all the, you know, difficulties that we face and trying to educate children and so, yeah, really lovely day. And it didn't rain, which was lovely.

Derek Wright: 09:03

So it's such an accolade to have, obviously, all the experience. It really. And all the hard work that you put into education to finish on a highlight. That is fantastic.

Derek Wright: It was.

Jackie Blake: 09:14

Thank you. Yeah, I think, for me, I feel like it's, you know, for all those people that I've worked with, not just at Nottingham but lace and Publix, actor and love British food and Natasha's Allergy foundation, all of those groups that I've done work with that you know, everybody works so hard so I sort of feel a little bit of that is for everybody actually. Not just me but yeah, very proud, definitely.

Derek Wright: 09:37

And catering is such a team m game, isn't it?

Jackie Blake: 09:39

Oh, absolutely, yeah, yeah.

Derek Wright: 09:42

And Rob, you mentioned a little bit about the education side of life with training young mind teaching young people how to cook. I see you've involved a little bit like we are with Blackpool. We're training young people, the chef's academy. And you have something very similar. Tell our listeners about that, Rob, and how you got involved with that and what impact is that having.

Rob Cass: 10:07

Okay, so we set up a working group, a number of years ago now. And on that working group myself, our company nutritionalist, Louise Goodall and one of my chef supports Mary, basically put together the academy cookery school, and it's basically a number of modules that we take, students through. They're all cost effective dishes that come in kind of under a pound as well. So they're cheap and easy for everybody to cook along with. So we start with a basic tomato sauce, using fresh ingredients. And then from that we take them through a number of dishes that they can actually make using that base. So we'll take them, ah, through making a curry with that tomato sauce. We'll take them through making burritos, chilies, lasagna, tomato and basil soup. There's so many different things you can do with that base and yeah, we take them through it. So we teach all ages. We've also got the genius chefs club as well, which is aimed at primaries. Josh Blakemore, our development chef, runs that kind of project as well. We are very much about education within our business and it's not just educating the students, is also educating our team members as well. So we have the culinary classroom as well where we basically have twelve modules throughout the year. Ah, and that's basically about our chefs learning about great quality ingredients. A lot of british food, there's a lot of farm visits, there's Billingsgate market as well. We go to Campbell Brothers as well in London. Look at the meat and the butchery. Jenny, one of my chef managers runs a game workshop as well. So we look at game when game's in season and how to work with that and the icing on the cake is, finishes, with a chocolate masterclass, just to get, people working with sweeter side of things as well, occasionally. So very much, very much about education, very much about training and growing the next generation of, chefs, but teaching them about how to use good quality ingredients.

Derek Wright: 12:39

Thank you, Rob. Cath, a little bit like Rob, obviously, you're really involved in getting the message out there. tell us a little bit about the work that you've been doing. I see you've been very active this weekend, so you might want to tell us about that as well.

Kath Brecon: 12:51

Yes. So this weekend there's been a big fish and ship festival in Whitby, which I was incredibly honoured to be asked to go and demonstrate straight. So everything was from scratch. And I love the fact that Rob mentions the base recipe. So I demonstrated on both Saturday and Sunday, hence why my voice is a bit husky. And it was. I did, obviously, seafood, which is one of the biggest things that I think we're up against, trying to get children to have the oily fish with the standards. So I did one base salmon Mexican bean recipe, which had six ingredients, because when we went out as part of a campaign, our chefs wanted less ingredients, simplified recipes. So it's something we did. So I took it out and, it was so, really well received. And so I did it as a Mexican salmon and bean burger in a homemade bun because I put butternut squash in to add a buttery taste. I actually toasted the butternut squash seeds and put them on top of the bread buns because I was giving food wastage tips as I was demonstrating. And then we did some of them into bites and I made homemade flatbread. So to show people how simple it is to make, and again, get the thing across that it was British food. It was simple. It's so easy to make and they could get their children cooking these recipes. So I had lots of people come and talk to me afterwards. One did comment, when are you going to be on telly? Which made me chuckle. So they were all asking me everything. So I followed Paul Gilroy, who's the head chef at the Magpie and what, and, gentleman called Dave, who's one of the local fish suppliers. There was all entertainment round, all local food stands, drink stands. There was a fish fillet in stand. There was a local brewery with all the bands in. It was a big, massive festival all weekend, which I think people have really, really loved. Then I went back again on Sunday and I did one base marinade two dishes again and there was one little girl and I think she had four portions. So I was like, I've cracked it. She's eight years old, I've cracked it. So, yeah, it's been really good and I feel really honoured to even, be asked because they wanted local renowned chefs in the area to be out there and demonstrate. And from that, now I've got other various dates to take our, our message even further. I did say to them, you know, we talked to the audience, you know, about some of the struggles that we're up against and, you know, like the rise of the food cost and everything and they were all quite shocked when I said how much we'd had over the years and they were all like, we're really, really shocked. And as I said to them, not all heroes wear capes and wear chef's aprons because I truly believe that every person in educating catering deserves a medal. Very much like Jackie. The things we do is part of the whole education catering team and if we can get that message out there and like thank people and say this is the great work we do, I think that's the best message of all.

Derek Wright: 16:02

And I, totally agree, Kath. I think what we've just spoken about obviously is very much. Sometimes things are always looked on the negative side of school meals as a whole. When you get underneath it, down to the operations teams, there's fabulous work going on, whether that's a product that we're sourcing and the local product we're sourcing or the people that are making those meals at end. And it's a tough job. It's a very tough job out there. and we've got to take credit for the teams who are out in those kitchens on a daily basis. Also, Cath, tell us a little bit about the Public Sector Chef of the Year. Ah, how was that?

Kath Brecon: 16:41

I'm still not quite over that one. I honestly went. I think I told everybody that day, I'm really, really humbled to be here. I know I'm not going to win. And, I will sat there looking at everybody's name and picture that was coming up and realised that I was actually the only female in our category. And then there was the military defence and care homes. And when, when I was actually announced at the winner, I don't think I actually looked at anybody. I just stood up and then I looked at a gentleman who I know exceedingly well and I just looked at him and I said, what on earth is going on? And then I had to get up on the stage and accept it. And, yeah, I'm still not quite over winning public sector. I don't even think I'm over winning the APPG, neither in January.

Derek Wright:: 17:36

It's credit where credit is.

Kath Brecon: I think it showcased him.

Derek Wright: Right.

Kath Brecon: 17:39

Oh, thank you. I think part of it as well is because, like, again, we're all up against the food costs, and it's like looking at what we can incorporate, do we need that ingredient? What benefits that gonna be? But it's still getting it to a cost that we can work in still, to give that child that hot, nutritious meal that we know is vital.

Derek Wright: 17:59

Definitely.

Kath Brecon: 18:00

So that's quite a lot of the work we've been doing and, like, looking at special diets and how to simplify that, how to simplify terminology as well for our catering teams, because obviously we know that some people have come and they're not from a catering background.

Derek Wright: 18:15

Definitely. And Jackie, on the catering background side, you must have seen quite a lot of change over the industry being in your role with LACA as chair and also when you were operations within Nottingham. Just tell us a little bit about some of the highlights of those changes over that time.

Jackie Blake: 18:35

Yeah, I think, saw it through the period of, you know, where it wasn't good, let's be honest. We all know that. I hate to say it, but the turkey Twizzler era, and I've really always pushed, because I think for me, working in Nottingham, there's such an awful lot of deprivation there. Ah. And I saw every day how important that, you know, that hot meal was for those majority of those children, and a lot of them, it probably was the only meal of the day that they did get. So for me, it was, you know, it's got to be nutritious. So when universal infant free school meals came in, I think that was a big opportunity because we got some money to invest, we put the infrastructure in to enable us to deliver that really good support. So it ensured that every school, every primary school had a salad bar. That was way even before universal infant preschool meals, actually. And there's a lot of sceptical head teachers and parents, but it's like, well, how on earth are you going to get a child to try something? And if you sell it as well? Look, this is just growing down the road in the local farm and fresh tomatoes. And again, hand in glove with that is we did quite a lot of growing clubs working with the school. So whatever they grew, they picked, washed, came into the kitchen and helped prepped it and served it. And I think that was the big change for me, was that, you know, 9th lesson of the day, which I always sort of hark on about, because if you engage children at that very young age, then hopefully it will stay with them for life and you're giving them those skills, to be able to do that. And we had lots of cookery clubs which involved parents and that was a lot of that was born out at a time when Covid hit and we'd had lots of people suffering with their cost of living, issues and they got stuff from food banks and they didn't actually know what to do with it. So again, we got them in and harking back to, Rob's message about training future generations. We'd put the parents, if they wanted to, through the basic food hygiene. So again, you're upskilling them at the same time and hopefully you've found yourself some future kitchen assistants, in the making. But I think there's been a big move forward, even just probably in the last five to ten years. And, the big message with things that LACA have promoted as well, it's just trying to get that public facing, get rid of the old image of school meals and how fresh and vibrant it is. For me, that message about British food as well, it's really key. We need to support our local farmers, and get children to understand where the food comes from because the whole package together, then it's going to solve a lot of problems. But as Cath said, obviously the latest challenge, it seems as though there's always a challenge with school meals. It just, it just changes every year there's another one. But I think certainly from when I was chair right up to current now, which has only been three, four years, the big problem has always been the funding. You know, if it's properly funded, then, you know, everybody benefits. It's a circular economy, isn't it? I know we're all caterers and we want that, but really it is a no brainer, isn't it? That's my view anyway.

Derek Wright: 22:14

And I think, really interesting leading on from that funding is obviously always an issue in every industry, and we're in a very interesting environment, obviously with the cost of food provisions, but we starting to really think about shorter and stronger supply chains and that involves more collaboration with the farmers. It involves obviously a lot more seasonality and being agile as kitchens. And leading on from Jackie Rob, a question to you is, around that workforce, what's ocs doing to really upskill that workforce. To be able to be the next generation, to be agile, to be able to go almost back to the days that we used to scratch cook everything and convenience food was or will be a thing of the past to try and really control those costs.

Rob Cass: 23:10

So in terms of OCS's kind of development plan for its team members, we have our own apprenticeship training platform. We also have our online training platform. We have our development chefs as well that are mentors throughout. So they will go in and spend quality times with the kitchen assistants to kind of get them kind of almost to the next level so that we can grow. Always have kind of a succession plan as well within there for when people move on, when people retire. Matt's absolutely fantastic. he actually won a cost sector award for his training programme and it really, really is good. He's very calm. He's working on programmes at the moment as well for kind of to ensure that the quality and the standard is there. So from kind of a sandwich right up to kind of main meal, culinary classroom has been fantastic. I've got two amazing chefs, that I've had on the culinary classroom as well. Zoe, who looks after Marshalls, park Academy down in Essex for me, started as a service assistant. You know, we put her through the MVQ, we got her on the culinary classroom and she's just. Some of the food she's delivering now is just outstanding. Michelle Rowe as well, she was runner up on our apprentice of the year. this year, she's entered, you know, she's entering laser, she's doing finishing touches and what she does and what she delivers. Now bursting with pride for the people that we've got in our business and not just in our business across education. It's amazing to see on social media some of the stuff I saw. Kath, I saw your little what you were doing in Whitby at the weekend, it was fantastic. Made me a bit homesick as well because I'm a Yorkshire lad down south. So he reminded me of my childhood holidays down in Whitby and Filey and Scarborough. And they don't do fish and chips down here like they do up there, my lovely. So I must admit I was a little bit jealous. but yeah, I mean that's what it's about. It's about getting in there, getting the British food. It's fantastic that OCs are now partnered with love British food as well. I'm looking forward to you know, my first meeting on the education, working group and you know, we've got some great things planned ahead. You know, we've got the D Day celebrations coming up, you know, national event with laser. We've got some great stuff planned for that and we've got some fabulous stuff in the pipeline. British Food Fortnight using those, british ingredients. So very, very exciting times ahead for OCS and the, the new partnership with Love British food.

Derek Wright: 26:15

Definitely. And it really interesting balance obviously between local authorities, obviously, and private caterers caf? With that development of staff and the workforce and what do you see different? Are you guys doing anything different within your workforces? See, Rob's given us some real key messages about what OCs are doing and the investment going into there workforce is how to strengthen that quality, but also using that quality produce and being able to deliver that and to the scale.

Kath Brecon: 26:49

That we do a lot, that what we're doing is again a bit like a rob. We have online training that all our sites are able to get on and do their training on, that our training manager can look at and make sure that they've all understood and everything. The training team has just expanded as well so they can get the message out a little bit more. We're looking at, on our side, the recipes, the ingredients that we use. So we've brought in some ingredients that are, ah, right across now that are all allergen free. We're looking at how we can do it, decrease the allergens in recipes because obviously we know that's a big factor within education and I think it scares quite a lot of people. Another one, another really outstanding thing that, we've done is we're actually doing a training for governors so they understand our standards, allergens. And I think if you get the governors on board, that's half, half the battle sometimes, because I don't think sometimes heads understand the severity of the allergens or, you know, it's getting that message out, it's getting that message about, you know, that we are still a fresh food organisation, you know, we do, we're still under the food for life. We're still 75% cook from fresh and we've taken on some new skills a couple of years ago that weren't from fresh, that have now adapted, you know, and they're absolutely thriving. The children are loving it. Again, it's children sometimes I think understanding the food because they're not having it at home. So it's getting out there, doing the taster sessions, showing them how vibrant and colourful that school food is, which is, again, something that I did this weekend. I think people are amazed that I was giving, their own flatbread and I was like, I promise you, we don't make our secondary schools make this amount of flatbread, like, fresh. And I told them a way that they could do it. So we're all a bit astounded. And again, it's that simple swap. Like Rob was saying about the base recipe, you can swap an ingredients to make it plant based, to make it egg free, to make it gluten free, so it's suitable for all and I think it's getting. We were doing a lot of training around that as well because sometimes staff are coming in and they don't understand how we can do it. So we actually change the recipes for them to fit in with that special diet. So we're taking the stress away from the kitchen a little bit.

Derek Wright: 29:17

Definitely. I think there, Cath, that's, a very good point. Special diets that when you start thinking about the amount of pupils that we deal with across our kitchens, we've seen, ah, a rise in special diets, whether that's health related and allergens cultural. There's so many different diet types that a school cook has to consider these days. So that's a major challenge. Going back to, British food fortnight the 20th, of September to the 6 October. What are you guys planning? Tell me some of your plans.

Rob Cass: 29:53

yeah, I mean, we're extremely, excited. Obviously, British food fortnight is going to be big this year, for us. My chefs and I are already planning ahead. We're going to have dishes throughout the day, so starting from kind of breakfast options, morning break and then into lunch. So, you know, we're going to be looking at, you know, some British classics and also some, street foods using British produce as well. So we're really, really looking forward to that side of things. It's going to be decorations and almost, like a festival of British food. So we're really, really excited. We've got the added bonus as well as the D Day celebrations as well. so I've been out buying props and bits and pieces for that. We've got some, you know, some old, old recipes, going in to be brought, back to life as well for that. But in terms of love, British food, we're also going to be adapting some of our food and mood recipes for British food fortnight. So we've got a lot of recipes that we use at the moment that are based around helping students concentrate and also kind of improve moods. So we're going to be developing some of those to incorporate, you know, some of the, some of the British foods, as well. And also it's a great time of year as well. You know, September, we've got the students just coming back, you know, we're capturing those year seven students as well that are, coming up from primary school. So it's a really, really good opportunity for us to showcase, the food within, education.

Derek Wright: 31:41

And that sounds great and hope we can, share some of those on the website.

Rob Cass: Rob, we'll send some in.

Derek Wright: 31:47

Great stuff. Thanks, Rob. Kath, tell us a bit about have you got any plans for British food Fortnight?

Kath Brecon: 31:55

Yes, we're going to be working with some of our local suppliers on some dishes and creating new things. I did get a really good. One of the fishmongers that I've worked with this weekend is going to be coming into schools. Obviously, we're quite vibrant with our schools on the coast, so it's something that we're quite keen to. I'm sure I can get some local chefs into schools as well. So that's what we'll be doing. And we'll, we'll be showcasing some of our new British dishes. So we've done a twist on some of the classics that we've just been developing. So be showcasing some of them over the week as well. Well over the fortnight as well. So we're really looking forward to it and getting that message again out there that, like, local British food is good.

Derek Wright: 32:41

Oh, thank you, Kath. Jackie, do you know, have you been told what Nottingham's gonna get, get up to this year or.

Jackie Blake: 32:49

No, I'm having to catch up with them in a couple of weeks, so I'll find out. But, I'll certainly be, It's a bit too far for me to get to Rob for a bacon buttie for breakfast. But I think, you know, I'll be doing my, I'll be doing my bit, but yeah, definitely. I mean, in the past we always have done.

Derek Wright: 33:06

Yeah, yeah, we did a lot of work, didn't we, last year, Jackie, on the love British food virtual village that can explore whether you're a young person, somebody in the industry, you can go and explore the virtual village, find out what your colleagues are up to. And there's a resource on there for young people as well. So I know, as our advisor, Jackie, we did a lot of work on that. It was really successful last year, so hopefully it'll be even more successful this year.

Jackie Blake: 33:33

Really good resource, isn't it, actually. And, I echo that definitely. If people are lacking a bit of inspiration, then definitely get onto that because it's a super resource to use.

Derek Wright: 33:45

It's time to say a thank you to everyone. Thank you Jackie, Rob and Kath for all your input. I know, you'll be doing much more work and linking in with Love British Food a lot more in the years to come. So hopefully we'll have a catch up at British Food Fortnight and hear what you guys are up to, at that point as well. So thank you for joining us today.

Derek Wright: 34:09

I've seen firsthand how our suppliers and farmers worked tirelessly to get the best of British produce onto plates in my career and I'm excited to have deeper conversations about how we can simplify and embed this across the education industry. You may not know, but love British food published the first guide to teaching food and cookery within the national curriculum. This was endorsed by the DfE and was sent to over 35,000 schools. We have been discussing British food fortnight so let me tell you a little bit more about this. British Food fortnight is on the 20 September to the 6 October. It's always the last week of September and the first week of October, the traditional time for celebrating harvest festival. This is an established date in the school calendar and thousands of schools have taken part over the years in classrooms with fun foodie educational activities and in school dining rooms where catering teams serve, special British produce themed menus during the National Food celebration. Britishfoodfortnight.org dot Uk is a virtual town with lots of recipes, films and case studies to inspire you to take part in the national celebration. If you like posters and any other material to decorate your schools during British food fortnight, please email infolovebrishfood.co.uk next we're going over to our resident chef Ben for his recipe of the month.

Ben Bartlett: 35:50

Hello, it's Ben Bartlett, director for Love British Food and here is a list of seasonal produce for June vegetables such as artichoke, aubergine, beetroot is fantastic at the moment. Broad beans, broccoli is good, carrots, chilies, courgettes, fennel, french beans, garlic, koirabi or, we sometimes call it wild cabbage. Now this is a really good source of nutrients such as vitamin C and fibre. Plus you can enjoy kohlrabi raw or roasted and add it to salads, coleslaws and stir fries. There's also mange to onions, pak choy, peas, radishes, rocket runner beans, samphire, spinach, spring onions and tomatoes. Now, my favorite's fine tomatoes. They're also known as truss tomatoes. These are tomatoes that are sold still attached to the fruiting stem. Now, they're not become fused with vine ripened tomatoes, which are tomatoes that are picked when ripe. This gives optimum flavour, but makes the fruit more perishable. Now, all British tomatoes are vine ripened because they only have a short distance to travel to market. So don't buy imported tomatoes because usually they have to be picked less right to withstand that lengthy journey by road or sea. They're often firmer. Long life varieties are, commonly used so by British. Now, fruits, we've got apricots, blueberries, cherries, gooseberries, peaches and strawberries. They're such a good brain food and herbs are in abundance at the moment. Basil, chervil, chives, coriander, dill, elderflowers, oregano, mint, nasturtium, parsley, both the curly and the flat leafed rosemary, sage, sorrel, tarragon and thyme. Now your meats, there's still some good lamb available, and wood pigeon at the moment's really good. But my favourite protein is fish. So good for you. Such good protein. All is omega oils with fish like cod, coaly crab, haddock, halibut, herring, langoustine, plaice, pollock, prawns, salmon, sardines, scallops, sea bream, sea trout, shrimp, squid, whelks and whitebait. Now, my recipe of the month is a delicious fish tacos recipe featuring British cod.

Derek Wright: 38:34

Thank you Ben, our resident love British food chef. And if you would like his recipes, you can find them in the link below or head over to lovebritishfood.co.uk. Thank you for listening to this episode of Love British Food. If you've been enjoying our podcasts, please tell your friends and family and make sure you share us. Follow us on social media and join in the conversation. Love British food. Don't forget, next time you're doing your shopping, buy British and love British. Bye for now